Well, this is disturbing. After a report surfaced claiming that Brett Ratner and Russell Simmons were investigated for sexual battery in 2001, a new story about the powerful duo has surfaced.

Russell Simmons is facing sexual assault allegations from a woman who claims he did so while she was underage.

The L.A. Times published a story today featuring model Keri Claussen Khaligi who alleges that Simmons “yanked off her clothes” when she was 17 as his friend Brett Ratner watched.
Khaligi also told the publication that she pleaded with Ratner for help, but was ignored and later was raped in the shower by Simmons.

“Ratner was an up-and-coming music video director and a protege of Simmons, the Def Jam Recordings mogul. They took Khalighi to dinner one night in 1991 at Mr. Chow in New York, and then back to Simmons’ apartment to show her a music video they’d been working on.

Quickly, Simmons began making aggressive sexual advances, yanking off her clothes, Khalighi said.

“I looked over at Brett and said ‘help me’ and I’ll never forget the look on his face,” she recalled. “In that moment, the realization fell on me that they were in it together.”

Khalighi said that Simmons, who was then about twice her age, tried to force her to have intercourse. “I fought it wildly,” she said. He eventually relented and coerced her to perform oral sex, she alleged. “I guess I just acquiesced.”

Ratner, meanwhile, “just sat there and watched,” she said.

Feeling “disgusting,” Khalighi said she went to take a shower. Minutes later, she alleged, Simmons walked up behind her in the shower and briefly penetrated her without her consent. She said she jerked away, then he left. “It hurt so much.”

Simmons has since responded and he’s strongly disputing her account and claiming that everything that occurred between them was with “full consent and participation.” (So he’s admitting to sex with a 17-year-old?)

He’s also disputing the account of another woman, Tanya Reid, who claims that in 1994 Ratner and Simmons harassed her while she worked at a South Beach hotel.

Reid told The Times that Simmons called the front desk and told her that he wanted Ratner to “hold her down” so he could perform oral sex on her. Later she claims that she acquiesced to oral sex with Ratner after he allegedly exposed himself and pushed her head down.

“I mean no disrespect to her when I say I do not recall a conversation with a hotel front desk clerk over a quarter of a century ago,” said Simmons in his statement.